


Flicker Show

by lovetincture



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29558049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: Jon and Elias are at a party. At a party. At a party.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Flicker Show

It turns out that parties are not any more enjoyable when you can hear the thoughts of everyone around you. They’re actually _worse,_ and really, Jon should have seen that one coming. Having the sneaking suspicion that everyone finds you strange and unpleasant and actually knowing it to be true are, in fact, two completely different things.

He feels a headache brewing. He needs another drink. The waiter who offers him a flute of champagne from a laden tray thinks he looks like shit, and Jon does not resist baring his teeth in the man’s direction.

There aren’t enough drinks in the world for this, and he might actually kill Elias whenever he manages to find him. The voices all around him settle into a dull roar, and Jon sets his drink down long enough to rub chilled hands against his aching temples.

The world has not ended when he opens his eyes, much to his dismay. Where’s a ritual apocalypse when you need one? Everything is white and shining and pristine in a way that sets his teeth on edge. Everything perfect and perfectly slotted into place, including the people in their expensive, well-tailored suits and elegant gowns. It’s a black-tie event, and Jon is feeling shabby and out of place, even in the suit Elias had insisted on getting him (“Think of it as an investment in the future of the Institute if you like, not a favor;” it had still felt very much like charity, and Jon didn’t need to read minds to know that Elias had relished his discomfort.) He feels more like a grubby child playing dress-up and less like someone who belongs here.

The polished marble floor makes him feel vaguely ill when he looks down, and Jon tugs at the collar of a shirt that makes him feel less guilty than the suit does.

He doesn’t want to be here, but the Institute still needs funding, as Elias had so helpfully pointed out, and Jon couldn’t argue with that.

Elias had then went on to insist upon Jon’s presence (“Really, Jon, investors are going to want to meet our head archivist.”) and Jon very well _could_ have argued on that point, but by then it was too late. Fast-forward through the arrival of a tailored suit in Jon’s office and a knock on his door four hours ago, and now he’s here.

The polished marble floor makes him feel vaguely ill when he looks down, and Jon tugs at the collar of a shirt that makes him feel less guilty than the suit does.

He doesn’t want to be here, but the Institute still needs funding, as Elias had so helpfully pointed out, and Jon couldn’t argue with that.

Elias had then went on to insist upon Jon’s presence (“Really, Jon. It won’t be so bad. You might even enjoy yourself.”) and Jon very well _could_ have argued on that point, but by then it was too late. Fast-forward through the arrival of a tailored suit in Jon’s closet and a knock on his door six hours ago, and now he’s here.

Jon’s never been much of a drinker. He’s always found more terror than release in the neck of a bottle. Smoking’s been his vice of choice—smoking and a lifelong bout of insomnia that he rather encourages. It’s hard to find sleep sometimes. There’s so much to know. So much to read and learn, so much to do. It’s hard to curl into bed and forget that long enough for sleep to find him.

Altogether, it means he hasn’t had the chance to test his newfound alcohol tolerance. He isn’t… human anymore—not exactly. He can apparently still get drunk, though. Is still human enough for that, thank god, although whether it’s working as well as it should is anybody’s guess. His insides feel suitably sloshy, the amber glow of the expensive-looking wall sconces starting to grow brighter as everything takes on a kind of muted, soft-edged aspect. It’s like looking at a picture through one of the photo filters Georgie had shown Jon on one of her apps, and there’s a mistake, thinking of Georgie.

Whatever else alcohol can still do for him, it doesn’t do anything for his mood.

Elias is… somewhere. Jon had lost him somewhere in the crowd an hour or so back, into the press of well-dressed people all standing a little too close, tasteful, expensive perfumes and colognes all starting to blend together into a distasteful miasma. Jon hasn’t gone looking for him, has decided to leave him to it. He’s had a few conversations in the interim, shaken hands and tried not to cringe too noticeably at the terrible things some of these people think. About each other, about him. People are so _petty,_ all of them.

It’s enough that he has to deal with his own thoughts, his own wants and needs and small pettinesses. It seems too much to ask that he should have to deal with everyone else’s too. Worse, that he should have to face it with a smile.

The conversations are repetitive and boring. New blood is in short supply in moneyed circles, is what he’s gathered. Gertrude Robinson had been the Archivist for decades, but more than that, she’d been the head archivist of the Magnus Institute, a distinction that matters here.

She was a familiar face, a familiar name. The Robinson family is hardly blue-blooded, but it’s still nothing to shake a stick at. Jon has seen the photos, has pieced together something of the woman staring implacably from them in statements read and things Known. He has a hard time picturing Gertrude cowering in the corner of a party, hanging back against a wall with a conveniently faulty lamp that flickers a little more dimly than its companions. He doesn’t think the Gertrude Robinson who killed her assistants with impunity and had a storage locker full of C-4 would—and yes, he’s admitting it to himself now— _hide._

But he’s hiding because all the conversations have been so abrasively boring. Because that woman in the clinging aubergine gown has been flicking her eyes toward him whenever he’s not looking and thinking the lewdest things. Because he’s tired and cranky and a little bit drunk, and because he’s currently _alone_ when he certainly didn’t come here that way.

And there’s the rub, isn’t it? Elias left him alone, and he’s pouting.

Jon doesn’t go looking for him. Staunchly refuses to go looking for him, in fact. Refuses to give up his perch along this smooth, cool wall that he’s becoming rather attached to. But because everything in his life conspires against him, because Elias is a bastard who isn’t omniscient but is close enough and certainly canny enough to turn what information he does have to his infinite advantage, because Jon is just that unlucky—the crowd in front of the open area that serves as a reception hall suddenly parts, revealing Elias in perfect, unobscured profile.

He’s being perfectly charming, of course. He looks exactly as though he belongs here, a small crowd of people around him and a flute of champagne clutched in his hand as he laughs at whatever joke the man beside him told. Jon grits his teeth as Elias smirks, aware of Jon’s attention on him. Jon would look away before he’s caught out, but what would be the point?

He stares and looks his fill, and eventually Elias catches his eye. A shiver runs through him.

* * *

It rains the entire way home. Jon watches the rain bead against the side of the cab window. It’s cold outside. He can feel it radiating through the thin glass, but it’s hot in here, the heater too much after the touch of night air on his skin as they waited under the thin shelter of the awning. He sweats in his coat. He can’t do anything about it without unhooking his seatbelt, so he sits and suffers.

The small of his back still burns where Elias had touched him, a casual gesture to usher Jon into the idling car.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Elias asks, and Jon barks a laugh.

* * *

He’d like to fast-forward this part, he thinks. Fast-forward the part where they get naked, peeling sweat-sticky clothes off one another’s skin. Skip the part where they touch, tongue against tongue and teeth against teeth. He thinks about the cab ride, the feel of the glass as he’d pressed his forehead to it.

The driver had been annoyed, of course. Had muttered darkly about smudges, if only in his own mind, but Jon was used to being a nuisance, and anyway, it felt nice.

He’d like to blink and open his eyes into the future, he thinks. A future of sharing space and sitting on the couch with someone… nice. Not talking. Not even touching, really. Just sitting, shoulder against shoulder while a cup of tea bleeds tendrils of steam into the air, and he could finally know all things at once.

The thought is almost enough to make him smile.

Of course, that’s not how any of this works. He blinks, and Elias is still looking at him, an unreadable little half-smile on his face. He blinks, and then he steps closer. After all, you can only get to the future by building it.

* * *

He’d like to fast-forward this part, and he can. You can do anything, liquid god of the radio-space, lurking between the airwaves in the shadows between ear and auditory cortex. Stories can be reforged. Heads can be cut off of idols.

He opens his eyes in a future far dimmer than any he could have ever imagined, and he regrets all the things that came before. There are no armchairs here. No couches, no rapidly-cooling tea. He would have taken that kiss, he thinks, if he had known. But who can ever know their future?

You can if you try.

* * *

He blinks, and the rain is just starting to let up outside. Its dull roar has let up to a tiny hush, almost imperceptible through the good insulation in Elias’ house.

“Our house,” Elias says, and Jon can’t help but scoff, but he means it fondly.

There are all these things he didn’t want. Clammy fabric peeled wetly from skin, hands shaping the curves of his scarred shoulders. The place where his lower back still burns. Teeth when he wanted eyes. He kisses Elias, tangling his hands in his hair.

“Jon? Jon, can you hear me?” Martin says, his voice growing more frantic. “Oh my god, Basira! Somebody!”

His head still hurts. He blinks, and it all starts again.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](http://twitter.com/lovetincture)


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